Jim Hayes' Web Pages

www.JimHayes.com

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I'm Jim Hayes. I'm a techie entrepreneur who, with my wife and business partner, Karen, started one of the world's first fiber optic test equipment companies, Fotec, in 1981. Fotec was acquired by Fluke Networks. I had also been involved in training cabling and fiber optic technicians since 1982 through a Fotec organization we called Fiber U. The Fotec and Fiber U websites and all the training materials we created were probably the most popular in communications cabling. In 1995, the instructors at Fiber U decided the industry needed a professional society so we founded The Fiber Optic Association.

Today I'm the President of The Fiber Optic Association and Karen and I run The FOA and VDV Works, a consulting company. We've revived Lennie Lightwave's Guide To Fiber Optics and Uncle Ted's Guide To VDV Cabling on the web for everyone who missed these highly-praised introductions to fiber optics and structured cabling. Fiber U has been adopted by FOA for their free online web-based training. I edit and/or write the FOA textbooks on fiber optics and cabling (as well as a couple of my own), write articles and columns on cabling for many publications and serve as a contributing editor to Electrical Contractor and IMSA Journal magazines. I'm also a frequent speaker at seminars and conventions to promote the FOA. I even still venture out to do training, especially training instructors, sometimes.

My latest book - Delusional Management - a combination business management book and memoir. After 50 years in high tech, mostly as an entrepreneur, I've got lots of stories, mostly amusing, but also instructive on what NOT to do when running high tech companies. Available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle versions.

This website includes my personal pages and links to those of my family.

I've always been involved with photography, sports cars and sports car racing. Before I became a professional "techie" I "wrenched" for various teams and photographed many races. I've retired from racing myself but maintain my interest in cars. I also collect auto art and models - like this Dallaire tether car from the 30s. And I still follow Astronomy! Karen and I are art and architecture buffs and frequently visit interesting sites. For example, we have visited many of the famous - and not so well-known Frank Lloyd Wright projects around the US.

 

 

My main interest today is photography - documenting our interests and travel. I have thousands of photos of racing, much from 60s era sports car races that I'm still cataloging, putting online and then giving them and much of my collection of auto racing memorabilia to the Watkins Glen racing library for preservation. I also am "curator" of many images of 50's racing taken by Howard Wolery, the high school teacher who got me interested in both sports cars and photography. Like most photographers,

I abandoned film for digital photography years ago. See the sitemap.

 

Karen and I enjoy travel, especially nature trips around the world and local in in our  home in California. We've been to Egypt, the Galapogas, Canada (Grizzlies) Kenya, UAE and Lebanon, and whale watching in Baja. And more!

 

Karen and I moved to California in early 2003 from the suburbs of Boston to a rural mountainside between LA and San Diego. Here's some photos of the place we bought which we called Food Chain Farm, local animals and plants. In 2018, we sold the farm and moved to downtown Santa Monica.